In 1990, the hotel affiliated to the Hongxing Machinery Factory closed down. Not only did Chen Guilan, the chef of the Red Star Machinery Factory, lose his job, his son was seriously ill and was lying in the hospital waiting for money to save his life.
Factory director Sun Daqiang deliberately withheld her seniority payment and forced her to hand over her ancestral secret stewed recipe. Chen Guilan refused to give alms and publicly posted the factory director's food and drink card to ask for bills to get back her hard-earned money, but she also completely cut off her escape route within the system.
In order to raise medical expenses, she sold goods and opened her first late-night food stall in front of the factory. With her unique skills as a chef, she earned her first life-saving money. But the jealous factory director attracted gangsters to destroy the place, and the greedy mother-in-law also targeted her money box. Faced with heavy persecution, Chen Guilan picked up the chef's bone-cutting knife.
